Land Of The Thunder Dragon Read online

  “We turned as one to continue up the path, Grandfather said to me that the young monks and I must head up the mountain path without them from here.”

  “As he stepped forward to wish me luck, something slammed into my Grandfather knocking him backwards into a large Mani stone. Something warm and wet hit me in the face and partially blinded me, but I could see a bright blue stick with feathers on the end sticking out of Grandfathers chest. I was knocked down from behind and Sanjay yelled in my ear to stay down, he would protect me. My Grandfather was yelling in pain, but he was saying something, “Let me speak to Jack, he must complete the mission.” Sanjay dragged me behind the mani stone while the King dragged Grandfather behind it. The other young monks were hiding behind the closest water wheel, all huddled together trying to stay out of view.”

  “It took me a few moments to realise that the stick protruding from Grandfather’s chest was in fact an arrow.”

  “Jack, Jack, come close to me,” Grandfather said in a voice that did not sound his own.”

  “I crawled over to him, so that he could talk without so much effort. “You must complete the climb and activate the device,” he said. “The King and Sanjay will look after me, but you must hurry, get the device activated and come back to me, I know that you can do it, take the other young monks with you, they know what to do. And Jack, I love you so much, never forget that as the climb becomes hard. Take my wooden staff. Now go.”

  “The King said, “Please don’t worry Jack, we will look after your Grandfather, help is already on the way.”

  “And with that, small hands grabbed my robe on either side and we took off into the forest at a run. There were no further arrows. I looked to the young monk on either side of me and thought that I recognised those eyes, and realised that I was being guided up the mountain by Sonam and Pema. Princesses of the Dragon King and Queen with shaved heads. They both gave me mischievous but frightened smiles and urged me to keep quiet.”

  “We waited out of sight on the edge of the forest for the other monks to join us. I could still just hear the King and Sanjay talking. “It will all be for nothing if Jack senior dies Sanjay, the boy will have seen the act that killed his Grandfather, and that will mean his innocence is lost and the device won’t activate. We must keep him alive to give young Jack every chance to get there in time, that is now our mission.”

  “I must have looked horrified to Sonam and Pema, because they stood up and dragged me into a run up the dirt path leading into the forest and up the mountain. I couldn’t see properly, between tears and what I now realised was my Grandfathers blood on my face and in my eyes. The Princesses were using the sleeves from their robes to wipe the blood from my eyes as we ran. I could barely make out the path, so I was relying on them totally to guide me, to stop me from falling.”

  “A little further on I could hear running water and the girls stopped me and pushed my face into a freezing mountain stream. I gasped from the shocking cold, but rubbed my face with my hands and cleared my eyes, I could see again and told them that we must keep going.”

  “The going was hard, and I could see that the other monks were trying hard to keep up with us from behind, but they were struggling.”

  “Pema said to me, “There is strength in numbers Jack, and the climb is long, two hours at this pace, but we must slow it down and run together and do it in three hours or we will become split up and the altitude will prevent us from getting there at all. The climb is nearly one thousand metres vertically Jack, that’s a lot.”

  “I didn’t want to slow down, right now I wanted to turn around and go back down to be with my Grandfather, he was my only family. Stuff this stupid device, some things, family, are more important than saving humanity. They are all too stupid to be saved anyway I thought. But then I remembered what Grandfather had said and I looked at Pema and Sonam and thought of the King and Serchu, my new mother, and realised that I didn’t for one minute, think that they weren’t worth saving.”

  “I resolved to carry on, Grandfather was in good hands. They could help him so much more than I could. This brought more tears and blurred vision, I wiped them away again. There was something that I could do, and that involved getting myself to the top of this mountain, finding the device and activating it as quickly as possible.”

  “The path was not technical at all, it was just relentless, switchback after switchback.”

  “We came out in a small clearing and the ground levelled out, I thought that we had arrived. There were more prayer wheels and flags all over the place. My hopes were dashed when Pema said that we were doing very well to be half way so quickly, I was heaving, trying to get oxygen back into my bloodstream, my heart was pounding. I looked at Pema, Sonam and the other monks who were surrounding me, looking at me with concern in their expressions. I saw nothing of the beauty surrounding me.”

  “They insisted that we pass the prayer wheels on the left side and spin them as we went past. We could do with all the divine help we could get right now. We all got our breathing back with the short break, I broke back into a slow run, we had to keep going.”

  “A little later we turned right and came out onto a small knoll, there, directly in front of us was the Takstang Monastery. It was enormous, so much larger than it looked from the valley floor, we were on the same level as the monastery, but between us and it, there was a massive chasm, looking as if it split the mountain in two.”

  “The path went left and slightly down, we followed it. The chasm narrowed after about three hundred metres, and then crossed a small stream, the same one that powers the prayer wheels at the valley floor. The path then turned back on itself and followed the other side of the chasm and what looked like hundreds of steps up to the monastery entrance.”

  “We pushed on, sweat and tears pouring into my eyes made it hard to see the slippery rock steps. I slipped, went over forwards and smashed my face into the corner of the next step. I felt nothing, other than the several hands that grabbed me and helped me up and kind voices urging me to keep going, we were nearly there. I could taste blood again, this time my own.”

  “We ran through an open gate structure which looked like the sort of place a guard would normally sit, nut no-one was there. We arrived at the base of a flight of timber steps that went back and forth a few times climbing the face of a massive white stone wall that led to a small timber door. The young monks indicated that this was the way to go, I began the final climb, but noticed that the others weren’t following.”

  “Sonam explained that no-one could come with me from this point on, this was the part that I had to complete alone. Suddenly I felt so alone, but my friends were right there, they would wait for me to return. When I arrived at the timber door, I didn’t know what to do, so I knocked, feeling very stupid.”

  “As my fist rapped on the door it moved open a crack, so I pushed it open and stepped over the threshold and entered quite a small room that was virtually filled with a massive golden Buddha. There was no way forward. No way around it. Why wasn’t there someone here to show me the way, didn’t they know that my Grandfather was dying?”

  “I called out, there was no response. I walked forward and could see my distorted reflection in the golden belly of the Buddha statue. I reached out to my reflection, seeing if I could see how much of a mess my face was, blood was dripping on the floor still. I accidentally dripped my blood onto the golden statue. At that moment I heard a clank followed by a low whirring, the golden Buddha started to lift into the air. It kept going, revealing a staircase descending through a stone passageway. There were small lamps that I later learned were called butter lamps lining the passage giving it a peculiar golden glow, I began the descent. The stairs only went down one flight and then levelled out into a short passage way that ended at another timber door. I opened that door and entered another small room. It was lit only by the light of the butter lamps in the passage. I could hear a faint voice, “hurry up young man, hurry up young man, om mani pad me hum,
hurry up young man.”

  “I followed the direction of the voice and could just make out a small monk sitting cross legged on the floor, he was covered in a scarlet robe, rather than the normal saffron colour, or was that just the light from the butter candles causing that effect? I wasn’t sure, but wonder if it mattered more than I could imagine at the time.”

  “I asked him to help. What did I need to do now, where is the device?”

  “No help can be given, he spoke again in his strange quiet voice. This is the device room and I can say no more.”

  “I looked around in the gloom, other than myself and the monk, the room was empty. I began to panic, tears once again began to cloud my vision, or was that blood? I didn’t have time for games, I must find the device. I tried to re-focus, the monk said that this is the device room. So, it must be, I started to look closer. I examined each wall, I knocked on them with Grandfather’s staff, it all seemed like solid stone.”

  “I walked backwards to the centre of the room and tripped over on a loose stone. I examined it more closely, it looked like it was exactly in the centre of the room. I tapped it with the staff and the stone glowed and then faded again. I rested the staff on it, the stone glowed again and so did the inscription on Grandfather’s staff, “this staff could be quite useful.” I could see that there was a hexagonal hole in the centre of the stone, I realised that it was the exact same shape as the base of Grandfather’s staff, so I placed it in there.”

  “It went in about thirty centimetres up to a point where the staff became round and couldn’t go any further. The stone and staff were still glowing, nothing else happened. I tried pushing it in further, but it wouldn’t go. I turned the head of the staff and it clicked a quarter turn to the right. The stone started lowering into the floor, but the staff stayed still until the stone had lowered enough that the staff just fell over.”

  “I caught the staff which had stopped glowing, but the hole that the stone had left was still glowing a warm golden colour, just like the passage walls were from the light of the butter lamps.”

  “Was that it? Was the device activated? I had no idea. I leant over the hole to look down into it. There was a metal bar that looked like a handle attached to something, I went to put my hand down the hole and heard someone take a sharp breath behind me. Was it the monk? I didn’t have time to look back, my Grandfather was dying. I took a deep breath myself and extended my arm down the hole and took hold of the metal handle. I thought that maybe I should turn it the same way as the staff turned in the key-stone, but no, it wouldn’t budge. I tried the opposite direction, but no, nothing. I pulled on it, but strangely at that moment it seemed to pull back. Then I felt it, something warm enveloped my hand. I panicked and tried to take my hand back, but found that whatever was wrapping my hand was holding it to the handle. This couldn’t be good.”

  “But then I focused my thoughts and realised that this was all part of the process, why would the device hurt me if it was essentially waiting for me to help it?”

  “As if it was reading my thoughts, I had a flash back of the attack on Grandfather, the sound of the arrow striking him was the biggest memory, him falling backwards, his blood spraying all over my face, and something I hadn’t noticed at the time, he never stopped looking at me the whole time. The expression he had on his face, was pure love. Pure love for me. He wasn’t speaking, which isn’t how I remembered it. Was this my Grandfather reaching out for me? And then I felt a chill, a realisation. The thing wrapping and holding my hand let go and the glow in the hole dimmed, there was a whirring noise and the key stone began to rise in the hole, pushing my hand back out.”

  “I was confused, had I activated it? The keystone kept rising, I removed my hand and the stone reached the top and locked back into place. I put the staff back in the keystone and nothing happened, I must have done something wrong, it wouldn’t turn, there was no glow. I had stuffed it up. I knelt over the keystone, pleading with it to give me another chance, but it was now just a stone, like all the others in the floor.”

  “It dawned on me and I cried, like no twelve year old boy should ever have to cry. My Grandfather was dead.”

  Chapter 14

  “The Roof of the World”

  “I have no idea how long I knelt there. Eventually I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see the elderly monk standing there, looking me straight in the eye, a look of deep and genuine compassion.”

  “He offered me sanctuary in the monastery for as long as I needed it. I stood and walked out with him, into a large outdoor courtyard within the monastery complex. It was beautiful and serene, and I felt safe there. Safe for the first time in weeks.”

  “I stayed for seven years, the first five of which I never even left the monastery. The King, Queen and even the Princesses visited me often, always offering kindness and support and assuring me that I could live with them in the palace if I so desired.”

  “After five years of practice with the monks I began to explore the surrounding mountains. The Himalayas are called the roof of the world, they are so big, you just can’t imagine the scale of the mountains until you see them in real life. Painters and photographers alike have tried to capture them in their work, but none have truly achieved it.”

  “I spent the next two years, wandering the roof of the world, visiting remote temples, ones that no westerner has ever been permitted to visit.”

  “My passion became the organising of re-vegetation projects throughout the mountain regions of Bhutan. The King and Queen supported these projects with funding for nurseries.”

  “The Princesses, Pema and Sonam, when not in school, spent all of their spare time helping me out on these projects. Over time, I fell in love with both of these amazing young women, and they with me. This caused quite a problem, how was I to choose between them.”

  “I was working on a re-vegetation project in a valley below Leh, one very clear Autumn day. I was looking around, being very proud of what we had achieved there, when a helicopter flew low up the valley and landed in a clearing a few kilometres from where our current campsite was. I recognised it as the King’s personal helicopter, and looked forward to his company.”

  “An hour or so later I noticed two people walking down the valley towards my position. Neither was the King. Approaching, were the Queen, Sercho, and as her bodyguard, my dear friend Sanjay.”

  “As they approached, Sercho indicated to Sanjay that she would like to speak with me alone. Sanjay nodded his assent and smiled at me as if to say hello and that we would talk later. I smiled back to him. Sercho embraced me with an awesome second mother’s hug and asked if we could sit somewhere and talk.”

  “We sat on a nearby log in the glorious sunshine and she began.”

  “I have been working hard to find a solution to your problem Jack,” she said.”

  “I must have raised my eyebrows, not sure where she was headed with this.”

  “She admonished me nicely. “Don’t think I am an unaware of what is going on between you, Sonam and Pema, Jack. I know they both love you deeply and I also know that the feeling is mutual. I like to believe that we live in a progressive society and it would be wonderful if the three of you could be together, but Bhutanese society will still not allow such a scandal within the royal family. Especially as they know nothing of you Jack, the incident of seven years ago was covered up very well.”

  “However, I also know that if you were to choose one over the other, it would split my family. Pema and Sonam are much more than just sisters Jack, they are more like one person in two separate bodies. I think that this is your dilemma, why you have fallen for both of them. The King and I have decided that should you all agree, we will send the three of you to Australia, to live on your farm Jack, we made sure that it has been maintained and ready for you to return to if you ever decided to do so. The girls will study, as can you if you wish.”

  “Sanjay is heading back there to be our advisor to the Australian Special Air Servi
ces, so will be available to you as a contact point. There can be no wedding Jack, but the success or otherwise of this relationship is up to the three of you to work out as you wish. But know this Jack, all three of you have our blessings and unconditional support.” With that she got up and began walking back to the helicopter landing site. “Well Jack, are you coming?” she laughed.”

  “Sanjay walked up to me and slapped me on my shoulder, “Surely you can’t get yourself into this much trouble again Jack?” Laughing as well, he ran to catch up with Sercho.”

  “I had learned to live with very few possessions and this project was all but complete, the monks helping me could easily finish the last few days of planting work. I quickly said my goodbyes, grabbed my back pack, and ran for the landing site.”

  “So, to cut a long story short, that is the story of how I failed my only chance at activating the device, lost my Grandfather, and came to have two wives, although we never married. And of course, for you five, the two Grandmothers who you have never met, until tomorrow.”

  “Would anyone like to ask any questions?” Grandpa Jack asked.

  Everyone was sitting around looking totally shocked, and there were more than one pair of red eyes in the group. The plane droned on around us.

  Lauren stood up, tears streaming down her face, and said, “Just so you all know, that is the first time I have heard that story in full, and it only reinforces my determination to do anything I can to help David, and the rest of you to make this mission a success,” she said.

  Raj was leaning in the doorway to the forward cabin, he had obviously been listening in, as a tear could be seen in his eye as well. He was trying to get Lauren’s attention. He spoke up, “The tanker is here Lauren.”

  “Ok” said Lauren, “We can continue soon, this is good news, our fuel has arrived. I need you all to strap into your seats while we re-fuel. We have one extra spot in the cockpit though, Wayne, would you like to come up and watch?”